Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Hello darling, up in my peaceful aerie, happy to be back among my familiar surroundings, looking forward to getting back to my usual routines, especially rigorous exercise after a week of - yes, many walks - but also an excess of quiche. My God, there's still quiche left too, and ham, though I managed to polish off the remainder of the roast chicken yesterday evening. Never even touched the mazurek, and barely the spinach pie. Yes, I cooked way too much in advance - but then it was nice to then get a week's break from having to shop for, plan & cook meals. I missed your company - had you been there I would have set the table or made up a tray. As it was I took each meal in the tiny galley kitchen, standing over the sink or looking out the café-curtained window. Usually over the sink because I didn't have anything on - and so went apronless.

I am enjoying the bucolic sounds here, instead of car alarms, horns, sanitation trucks - street noises that I endured for many years, and am glad I no longer have to try to tune out. Here, at the moment, I hear all sorts of bird whistles and calls, including cardinal tu tu tu's, a motorcycle on Route 9 somewhere in the middle distance, the squeaking of our drier (mildly annoying), tree frogs or crickets pleasantly, rhythmically trilling.

The drive back was very pleasant, D and I actually had a nice time together, getting along, which was nice. On the way, in Dutchess County, we observed a Beemer with Mass plates that had been pulled over, presumably for speeding, by a state trooper. (Let me interject - my God, all the people texting & driving, switching lanes, weaving in and out, tailgating - and I get pulled over for speeding? I'm an angel in comparison to what goes on, especially before those Jersey bigass SUVs pull off the Henry Hudson to go back over the GW.) Anyway, so we passed the beemer & the trooper car on the grassy shoulder, lights all flashing (oh, shudder). Minutes go by, D & I chat, listen to radio, extol over the genius of Paul Simon and Bob Schneider, when in the left lane zooming past us - is the dark beemer. I remarked, it's the same guy - eagle eye said D - and I said, it's the Mass plate - I can't believe he's speeding again. I mean, he was at full stop with trooper miles back - and now he's way ahead of us. And indeed, within a minute or two, he was out of sight - even as we approached a long vista'ed ribbon of road (spread before us the most amazing pastoral scene of panoramic rolling countryside, greener with springtime growth in the elapsed week) - he was gone. We presumed this guy had been pulled over for speeding and issued a ticket, especially in these beating-bushes-to-generate-revenues times. I thought about when I had gotten my ticket, had beaten myself up over it, and tried afterward to be extremely vigilant and careful - and this guy does the very opposite.

Just as D was about to head off the Taconic onto the Route 82 exit at Ancram - there was the Mass plate Beemer again - pulled over for the second time - by two state trooper cars. Wow.

Honestly, I marveled. I have never witnessed one driver get two speeding tickets in such short order. And the Columbia County troopers must have known that the Dutchess County ones had already nabbed him. D surmises that the Beemer must have passed one state trooper who simply radio'd ahead - which explains the two cars.